Weekly Update: August 3, 2025

And then it was August.

It is this time of the summer we start feeling our age. It isn’t because we are any more tired than normal (a little) or feeling slightly sore (descending mountains does a number on your knees), but because we are reminding the staff, the campers, and ourselves to apply some Ferris Bueller wisdom to these days: “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

The great thing is, when you are at camp, you are always looking around.

During the two staff meetings at camp today, Big Spring staff members shared the best experience of their summer or the best five minutes of their last week. High Trails staff members wandered around the lodge with paper taped to their backs and their colleagues wrote affirmations and words of gratitude on the sheets…and 8.5x11 Praise and Love note!

Reflection and gratitude are an incredible part of the opportunity of a summer at camp. We are able to reflect on our accomplishments, missteps, growth and future trajectory while writing in our journals in a hammock or while considering how this job may apply to our future careers or while simply being grateful for the people who are singing next to us at Vespers tonight.

So we want to share with you just how incredibly grateful we are to and for our Staff of 2025.

In those staff meetings today sat a collection of unicorns: rare and mythical creatures who are prone to “tooting” rainbows and granting wishes. They are creators, not consumers, of an experience that is pretty darn hard. Even though we all have kids, many of us don’t have 4-5…and most of us do not have 9. That is a lot of socks. And underwear. And water bottles. And shoes…So. Many. Shoes.

These are Gen Z’ers: known for their passion but not for their follow through. Celebrated for their worldliness but not for their humility. Open to all ideas but resistant to authentic communication. They are lauded for their advocacy and lambasted for their work ethic. Have big dreams but often lack the drive to achieve them. They are both sides of the same coin: unequivocally complicated and wholly human…and camp attracts the best of them.

This summer, staff members who had never slept in a tent helped lead campers up 14,000 foot mountains. Staff members who were afraid of lightning stoically smiled and whooped and played UNO with campers through the worst storms of the summer. Staff members with fevers and coughs pulled themselves out of bed and Hiked the Pike, saddled up horses or listened to their campers share their thoughts, feelings and nervousness on the eve of a big trip. They weren’t always perfect, but the ones who were sitting in the staff meetings today did not ever give up and continued to believe in the power of the experience for the campers and for themselves.

As the summer grows longer, but the days grow ever shorter, some of our staff may not always see or feel their inner sparkle, but the campers see it. During the prospective camper tour over the weekend, one of the parents was lamenting about the lack of opportunities for children to develop true independence (watch out, Gen Alpha…we are already categorizing you)–but celebrating that opportunity at camp. Figuring out how to do things, when to do them and who to do them with is a lifelong journey for all of us. She went on to say that she could see how kids grow in independence at Sanborn because we are always saying, “Yes.” Our staff have said yes (or yes…and) to water wars, to dance parties, to keeping pet crawdads, to glow-stick lightshows, to sleeping out under the stars (no tent!), to creative menus, to woodworking and makerspace creations, to feeding the horses/goats/pig, to climbing that hill to watch the sunset, to eating a few extra s’mores (or desserts), and to the entire summer experience.

Julie Richardson, former High Trails director, used to often say to the staff, “Thank you for saying ‘yes’.” It was a great reminder to us that, when you commit to do something, you say, “Yes, I can/will do that.” Yet she was also talking about a different kind of yes: the “yes” of possibility, the “yes” of courage, the “yes” of I’ve got that/I’ve got you/I’ve got us, and the “yes” and-I-might-need-a-little-help-here humility that comes from trying something new and hard and bold.

There are certainly individuals who started the summer sitting in staff training who were not sitting in those lodges today. Yet the ones who are there have demonstrated a commitment of focus and time that IS truly rare in a world that is noisy, fragmented and asks them (and us) to only give short spurts of attention to anything–and they have given their attention and their focus and their summer to helping kids develop a sense of self, community, earth and wonder through fun and adventure. It is a very hard job–and we are grateful for their grit, determination and joy.

There was SO MUCH joy this week at both camps: High Trails had incredibly successful long trips (click here to read the collected long trip letters) and climbed so many mountains, rode miles of trail (and hiked some, too), made musical instruments at the base of Mount Antero and circumnavigated 11-Mile Reservoir. Challenges were overcome, animals were spotted, rivers were forded, rainjackets were utilized, s’mores were eaten and laughter was shared–in fact, many of the girls were still laughing when they were singing about their trips at lunch today!

Big Spring also had a week of adventure and silly fun. From Riders of Rohan to Rock n’ Ride–our creative wranglers and riding staff combined books and horses as well as opportunities to wear boots in the morning and rock climbing shoes after lunch. The Spring Tank Bomber left many campers feeling tired but also feeling very triumphant after their 25+ mile day on the property. The Artisan Chef overnight was a true culinary masterpiece featuring cuisine from Mexico and Argentina with campers and staff cooking Argentinian chicken, chimichurri and delicious, rich drinking chocolate (and that was only dinner). Plus campers mountain biked, looked at the stars (and moon!), floated down the river and captured the BEAST!

Our Sanborn Junior program started the week with cabinside and unit overnights and lots of getting to know you activities–the games night and pizza making in the High Trails lodge was a highlight. This week will be busy for the junior campers with all day tube floating trips to the South Platte River, hikes to the Florissant Fossil Beds and fossil digging, plus another overnight on a week that promises even MORE shooting stars as we move closer to the peak of the Perseids Meteor Shower on August 11th. The Junior campers are enjoying their time together in their hammocks, but they REALLY loved the all camp carnival on Saturday (the karaoke and popsicles were a hit!).

For our month-long program, this week is full of “last chance” activities at High Trails and it is Big Spring Long Trip week–with all of the campers heading out on their final 3, 4 or 5 day trip of the summer. They, too, will climb many mountains, ride miles of trail and try and catch even more crawdads for the yurt. Staff are excited to have these final “peak” moments with the campers and to make the most of these waning days of summer before most have to head back to school in the next few weeks.

High Trails campers will venture out on myriad all day and overnight trips this week, including the Cabinside All Days tomorrow. One of the highlights of this busy final week is the JC Dinner: a special evening hosted by the High Trails Junior Counselors for the High Trails community. This year’s theme is: Book of Stories–we cannot wait! We are also looking forward to the Gymkhana Rider’s Showcase next weekend, plus our Closing Campfires, final Vespers and so much more.

The days are like weeks, but the weeks are like days. It’s always surprising when August arrives…but even more strange to try and think back to May. There have been countless individual experiences and interactions since then–and we are so appreciative to everyone who has been part of all of it.

We will enjoy this last week of Summer 2025!